Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [92]
At first, it was just him and Ted Sorensen. The two of them would head out together across the country to introduce Jack to the local political people, the ones who’d likely be chosen as delegates to the next national convention. “For Christmas that year, 1956,” Sorensen recalled, “I gave him a blank map of the United States, with each state shaded or colored . . . according to a code indicating what percentage of that state’s 1956 convention delegation had supported him for vice president. He pored over that little map often in the next few years, and it became a guide to our early strategy and travel priorities in his quest for the presidency.”
The hosts welcoming them out there in America’s cities and towns responded well to the attention of the glamorous Massachusetts senator. “The smaller states,” Sorensen remembered, “were flattered by this attention; the large states were pleased to have him speak at their annual fund-raising dinners.” Wherever he traveled, he was a hit, and for Sorensen, it was the hair-raising adventure of a lifetime: “To reach small towns not served by major airlines, private planes were an unavoidable part of political campaigning. Most politicians can tell stories of scary plane travels. Prior to my journeys with JFK, at least two sitting senators had been killed in small plane crashes.”
He found his boss to be great company. It almost always was just the two of them, with the budding candidate giving the speeches, shaking hands, getting to know people, while his aide took down the names and details. “It was more than a list of names and addresses. I attempted to add to the file notes on which people were most influential in each state, their attitudes toward JFK, and the issues that mattered most to them. I also made certain that they received Christmas cards, personal notes, some even phone calls, from JFK, gradually building a ‘Christmas card list’ of thirty thousand influential Democrats across the country.” With a goal of meeting every potential delegate, it meant dealing with a lot of politicians.
In those days the word politician, used today almost exclusively for candidates and officeholders, applied to those fellows behind the scenes as well. They were the ones calling the shots, picking the future mayors and governors. In the late 1950s and early ’60s, many of those less visible pols—the party chairmen, the big-city bosses, the ward captains—were Irish Catholics. Actually, almost all of them were. “When we said good-bye to almost every Irish-American mayor, party leader, or legislator we met around the country,” Sorensen recalled, “JFK would turn to me and say—depending on whether our host had been warmhearted or cold, compassionate or conservative—‘Now, that’s our type of Irish.’ “
With some of this crowd, their mission would prove a hard sell. The city bosses from New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago were the people Kennedy most needed to win over. Having them on board would lay the foundation for winning over big-state governors such as David Lawrence of Pennsylvania and Pat Brown of California. Such men were skittish about Kennedy, perhaps even resentful. Why back another Al Smith, the Irish-Catholic New York governor who’d lost to Herbert Hoover in the presidential race of 1928? Based on Smith’s performance, Kennedy could run and wind up bringing scores of other Democrats down with him, embarrassing Catholics like them in the process. Some begrudged the fact of Kennedy’s effort itself. If he could take it on, it undercut their own egos. Why weren’t they themselves running for president?
The key players the traveling duo of Kennedy and Sorensen hooked up with might include a congressman, an influential delegate, a governor, or sometimes just an old friend or relative.